Exploration: Increase first discovered, reduce ordinary payouts.

[clinton]

I think a 50% bonus for first discovered is barely noticable and should be boosted.

I suggest halving the current payouts but increasing the first discovered bonus from 50% to 500%.

That basically doubles the payout for first discovered. To give an example, currently for a detailed surface scan of a terraformable Earth like are:

Already discovered: 600,000cr
First discovered: 900,000cr

Under my suggested change:

Already discovered: 300,000cr
First discovered: 1,800,000cr

This gives a nice bit of extra income for explorers who get a bit off the beaten track instead of having the quickest way to get to Elite in exploration just following around the "road to riches" guide.

 

[MBaldelli]

I think a 50% bonus for first discovered is barely noticable and should be boosted.

I suggest halving the current payouts but increasing the first discovered bonus from 50% to 500%.

That basically doubles the payout for first discovered. To give an example, currently for a detailed surface scan of a terraformable Earth like are:

Already discovered: 600,000cr
First discovered: 900,000cr

Under my suggested change:

First discovered: 300,000cr
Already discovered: 1,800,000cr

This gives a nice bit of extra income for explorers who get a bit off the beaten track instead of having the quickest way to get to Elite in exploration just following around the "road to riches" guide.

Screaming Jesus on a Ferris Wheel, how did I miss this one!? What sort of punishment is this? You're proposing giving less money to the cherry pickers to... what?! Stop them from Cherry Picking?!

You better check your numbers, because it's backwards!

 

[Daynen]

LOL, pretty sure that's a typo on the changes one. I do feel like actually exploring isn't really rewarded, whereas "patrolling" the same systems thousands of people have already scanned seems to be overvalued. I'm honestly surprised that stations accept exploration data from systems they already know about (I can only imagine how tired Trevithick dock is of getting the same data from the new guys...) It's not like anything's really changing in these systems that needs updating--at least in the planetary/astronomical sense.

 

[clinton]

Screaming Jesus on a Ferris Wheel, how did I miss this one!? What sort of punishment is this? You're proposing giving less money to the cherry pickers to... what?! Stop them from Cherry Picking?!

You better check your numbers, because it's backwards!

The numbers were right, just the example was wrong. It's fixed now.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm honestly surprised that stations accept exploration data from systems they already know about

I think this is necessary for gameplay purposes - the "fully scanned" bubble is at least 500LY radius around Sol and probably above 1kLY by now. Getting at least a little bit of pay for in-bubble exploration means people get used to it as an option - and don't just keep getting zeroes for that discovery scanner their ship comes with by default - without having to go what can seem as a new player an unimaginable distance (which is only going to get worse as the game continues, too)

In-lore justification I made up: scanners all have minor manufacturing variations. Scanning and returning data on already known bodies lets the results be calibrated, so when you bring in something new they can adjust for "ah, their scanner reads 0.2% too high on temperature" ... but they all know you wouldn't bother with the calibration if you weren't being paid something for it.

I think making first discovery bonus a *bigger* proportion of the payout is a good idea, though.

 

[MBaldelli]

The numbers were right, just the example was wrong. It's fixed now.

Now that you fixed it... Time to be serious.

Here's the problem. When it comes to Exploring -- it is the lowest stress, practically no hazard (other than user error) paying "job" (recreation) in this game. About the only part that might occur for a bigger cut of pay would be hardship because you can't really do this in groups or as a party boat (mainly because the mechanic for winging up for this is broken again). If done right, while it pays modestly, it is rubber stamped from start to finish based on an almost fixed table that's pretty damned easy to determine and figure out.

The truth is that Surveyors don't get paid much: $52,000 American is the median salary for them. Even with this game occurring within 1300 years into the future, the inflation might be a little off (I admit I'm not great at economics), but considering the lack of stress and hazard, it's got to be the easiest money a person can make -- even if it's mind-implodingly repetitive.

Another ongoing problem with this is that with these changes in pay structure, you're NOT going to be remedying a problem Hardcore Explorers (like myself) see within 300 LY of the bubble: Cherry Picking. In fact, based on your suggested changes, you will be encouraging more cherry picking while being needlessly sadistic to the double-dippers (like I've been doing the last two forays out of the Bubble) for scanning those ELW, AW, and HMCs that were already first discovered by Cherry Pickers.

Tell me, is that the sort of sadist you are?

I put in a suggestion some months back (April I think) suggesting a possible fix called "Completion Pay", giving a percentage bonus for completing the scan of a system... Leaders of the player wing -- Privateer's Alliance -- liked it so much they even added a suggestion to it turning it more cut-throat by saying that the explorer doing the completion of the system take the first discovered by from the cherry pickers.

What we got instead was simply a reasonable increase in DSS payouts.

So until such time as the devs introduce something a little less hardship and a lot more challenge to it (and I'm not talking player sado-masochism that frequently show up in this forum), I will not agree to this change in payout structuring.

 

[Daynen]

My major point about exploration is that it's simply another way to make money. We're not exploring for anyone's major benefit except our own "entertainment." Turning in exp data to any given system doesn't affect any NPC behaviors, nor does it really afford players any new information or options. It's completely quarantined from the rest of the playerbase and is purely an achievement grind with a modest payout and no reactivity from any station, regardless of the rarity or quality of any data. It's very static and has no impact on the game.

 

[Stellar Gambit]

Now that you fixed it... Time to be serious.

Here's the problem. When it comes to Exploring -- it is the lowest stress, practically no hazard (other than user error) paying "job" (recreation) in this game..

Clearly you never jumped into a binary star system.. between the stars... or if your REALLY unlucky, basically inside one. Or when you go jump after jump after jump and forget to check the gravity of of the planet your about to land on.

Oh, Oh, Once... I even saw another player... he headed in my general direction in a kind of aggressive manner.

And then there was this other time, when I got out of my SRV and snagged my arm on a jaggy bit of metal.. that was really sore.

Pah.. no danger and stress.. you don't know what your talking about.

 

[Micha]

Sortof related is another idea I've been championing and that of the real "first discoverer" vs the first one back to the Bubble with the data.

I'd like the first one to sell the data to get the First Discovered Tag as well as the Bonus Payout, but if another explorer actually visited and scanned something first (easy to tell, game keeps datetime stamps, surely?), when they get back and sell their data, they should be awarded with a co-First Discoverer tag. Perhaps with a star next to their name to show they really were the first, even if not the first back to the Bubble.

Currently the long-term explorers miss out on tags by the "buckyball explorers".

As for the OP's suggestion, I'm fully behind that as well. Current exploration payouts are ludicrous anyway. In fact, perhaps a sliding scale down to a minimum payout. In-lore can argue the first few to return the data are verifying the initial scan, but as a system gets scanned more often, the value is less and less down to a baseline price.

 

[MBaldelli]

My major point about exploration is that it's simply another way to make money. We're not exploring for anyone's major benefit except our own "entertainment." Turning in exp data to any given system doesn't affect any NPC behaviors, nor does it really afford players any new information or options. It's completely quarantined from the rest of the playerbase and is purely an achievement grind with a modest payout and no reactivity from any station, regardless of the rarity or quality of any data. It's very static and has no impact on the game.

I think this is an underlying problem with the game itself and not just something focused on Exploration. I do agree that Exploration is the most sanitized and isolated out of them all given that the only ones that seem to show any deference toward explorers are the Player Factions.

However, one of the more pressing potential problems that I've been catching whiff of in the suggestion forums has to be the way the data collected by Explorers has been utilized for thoughts expansion. Was the Colonia/Beagle Point pushes been initiated by the developers based on the data that had been collected by the explorers in the game? Or was it initiated based on their omniscience to the sandbox? I get the distinct impression it was the latter and not the former.

That sort of omniscience can be immersion breaking when it's realized by the player base.

Granted I know that this game is playing in real time, so expansion is naturally going to be slower than in the world.

Sort of related is another idea I've been championing and that of the real "first discoverer" vs the first one back to the Bubble with the data.

Getting cutthroat on First Discovered based on time-stamp? I could definitely endorse that.

Currently the long-term explorers miss out on tags by the "buckyball explorers".

I have a counter-debate to this want to finding ELW that the cherry pickers seem to go for first. There's what? 400 Billion stars in the Milky Way? There's so many other worlds and moons and materials to be found in the mid-frequency and Low-Frequency stars (L-class and lower). While the chances of ELW, AW, HMCs and MR are significantly lower they're still there and there's plenty of star systems to get first discovered with your name on them.

There's plenty of systems above and below the galactic plane (which we explorers often call the basement and ceiling) through the whole range of stars that the cherry pickers haven't even thought of doing.

Has this been completely exhausted? I can guarantee you based on what I'm seeing in the Sagittarius Arm as I'm working to unlock Professor Palin, it definitely isn't the case.

Not everyone can be the Ferdinand Magellan of ELWs. Some of us should be ready for the fact that our Elite Reputation relied on finding big rocks around L-classed stars.